Keepin' Up With The Joneses

Martin Update - Wed. 8/3/11

It's been a long few days. Martin's first surgery was successfully completed on Tuesday around noon and we were able to see him in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) later that same afternoon. He was on the heart-lung bypass machine for 2-3 hours while our surgeon, Dr. Kirschbaum, and his team altered the anatomy of Martin's heart and major blood vessels to allow his working right ventricle to pump blood throughout his entire body.

When we got to the CICU he was deeply unconscious and pretty puffy-faced but still very recognizable as our son. He also had about 2-3 dozen tubes, wires, catheters, etc. that continue to keep him alive and monitor his status for this surgical recovery stage. It was definitely alot scarier looking than the set of attachments he had when we walked him to the operating room doors early that morning, but once again, after spending just a short while with him and watching the familiar way the amazing nurses here handle him and his life-saving equipment, we've both gotten alot more comfortable that he's the same strong baby we'd gotten to know in the 72 hours before surgery and now we really gain a measure of comfort from the slowly, steadily improving information the equipment is able to collect and report.

The anesthesiologist was keeping him in a 'twilight' state of consciousness in order to spare him some of the pain of surgical recovery, but that's been steadily wearing off for the past day and a half. His heart rhythm has largely been holding steady with just one episode of elevated heart rate that he self-corrected. Through application of great skill and experience the medical staff at Children's have been keeping his blood pressure steady while his body heals and finds it's new modus operandi. Earlier tonight after dinner, when he heard our voices and felt our touch, he began to open his eyes just a little for the first time since surgery. He's also starting to move his arms and feet occasionally, again usually in response to our touch or voice :). So he's had a short while to recover from the initial system shock of the surgery and now his organ systems are all starting to wake back up and see how well they can work with his new heart anatomy and circulation. This is definitely still a scary time, but he's cleared the 12 and 24 hour marks which are supposed to be somewhat critical. One of the doctors even used the words 'great' and 'fantastic' in talking about his recovery progress so far which we're told they don't throw around lightly, so that was definitely one of the bright points in our day :]

He still has several stages of recovery to work through, including weening off the ventilator that's performing some of his breathing at the moment, but he's making encouraging progress with that as well. It's important for us to remember that he's not out of the woods at this point, but we're happy to report he does seem to be recovering well so far and we hope to have even better updates soon :) Thanks for all the love and support.

Baby Pictures!

Here are some pictures that aunt Emily took on our camera at Athens Regional Medical Center this past Saturday morning, the day of Martin's birth. Hope you enjoy as much as we do!

Martin Jones

HLHS

Five months ago, we'd never heard of Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. For anyone who doesn't know anything about HLHS and hasn't already googled yourself over the head with information, here are a couple good introductory sites our pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Sharma, recommended after Martin's initial diagnosis:

This site has a better description of the condition than most:
http://www.choa.org/Child-Health-Glossary/H/HY/Hypoplastic-Left-Heart-Syndrome

This site is good in conjunction with the above site only for the roll-over diagram of the heart that helps visualize all the moving parts. It's easier to picture than read text description of:
http://www.pted.org/?id=hypoplasticleft1

It's a boy!

After 14 gloriously grueling hours of labor Martin Zwicker Jones arrived just a few days early this Saturday, July 30th at 8:25 AM weighing in at 6lbs. 9oz. and lying 19" tall (including MASSIVE cone head :) he came into the world with his chin up! After the sunny-side-up (a.k.a. O.P.) delivery he was nice enough to pose for this lovely closeup taken by the Athens Regional NICU nurses:

This is a picture of a picture, may update with some better pictures later. We were able to see him shortly after this was taken when the Athens Regional nurses took us on a "field trip" to visit him in the NICU on the way to Morgan's recovery room. We got to have another good visit with him while the Children's Flight Crew were prepping to load him into the mobile transport pod for the helicopter ride to Egleston.

He was transported from Athens Regional to Egleston that afternoon while Morgan and I stayed to crash and recover from the delivery experience. After a quick stop off at home for a shower, I drove into Decatur to see Martin at Egleston Saturday night. He was sleeping peacefully when I got there:

Meanwhile, Morgan spent the night recovering at Athens Regional with her Mum. After being discharged Sunday morning, they made the trek to Atlanta just in time to see Martin before evening rounds :)

Mama's Growth

We are really excited to be expecting a little girl or boy! From the very beginning, my most frequent question to Doug was "do I look pregnant?". We started taking pictures in late November and have tried to keep it up throughout our pregnancy. Hope you enjoy the growth of my tummy as much as we do!

Nov. 28, 2010~4 weeks